November 28, 2016

Jeddah – One-quarter of Saudis of marriage age are single, the General Authority for Statistics for 2016 said. The trend in the increase in the number of unmar­ried men and women over the age of 15 has prompted the Saudi gov­ernment to implement policies to encourage marriage but it has met with little success.

The government estimates that 5.26 million Saudis are single. Per­haps the most startling statistic from the authority’s demographic survey is that 3 million men over the age of 15 are single, exceeding the number of unmarried women. The population of Saudis in the kingdom is estimated at 21.1 mil­lion. About 8 million foreigners work in Saudi Arabia and they were not included in the survey.

Potential Saudi brides and grooms generally point to high dowries demanded by the brides’ families, the expense of a wedding party and the high unemployment rate among Saudi men, estimated at 10-12%, as reasons for so many single people.

Alawyah Salama Murjan, former administrative supervisor in the social studies department for the Ministry of Higher Education in Medina, said the media and expo­sure to Western culture also play a part in young people remaining single.

“Families put pressure on their children to have weddings accord­ing to their own traditions and cus­toms,” she said, “but young people want more practical weddings and want to spend less. They see that on television and in movies, and the types of weddings they see ap­peal to them.”

She said Saudi men often have unrealistic expectations about the kind of women they want to marry. “They might want someone with lighter skin and different colour eyes because this is something they see in the media and it’s desir­able but can be unrealistic, so they marry later.”

Another underlying and less dis­cussed aspect of Saudis remaining single are the expectations of Sau­di women who find their choice of husbands wanting.

“Saudi women are better edu­cated, hold better, high-paying and prestigious jobs and they are often treated very well at home,” said one Saudi sociologist. “They don’t want to risk marriage with a care­less man.”

Maryam Alyenbaawi, 30, of Jed­dah, said she has had several suit­ors over the years. Although her family vetoed marriage proposals from some, she found that none were compatible because they hinted early in the courting process between families that they sought to control her.

“I have it good at home,” she said. “I have a good job and my own money and a good place to live. I don’t need a man to fulfil me. I might want a husband in the future but not another father. I al­ready have one.”

Magda Muhammad Ali, 39, of Medina, said her father rejected several suitors over the years. She is resigned to a single life but she does not see it as a curse. “There is nobody out there that I’d run to for marriage. There are few men I see that I would tolerate,” Ali said.

Saudi Arabia is not alone in its struggle to have its citizens marry but is part of a trend in Middle East countries in which marriage is of­ten not regarded as the first life choice among young adults.

Alrai of Kuwait reported that 45% of the Jordanian women of mar­rying age remain single. Lebanon ranks first with 86% of its women unmarried. War conditions in Syria have led to 70% of the country’s women being single. About 40% of all Egyptian women eligible to be married are single.

The government of the United Arab Emirates reported that 60% of its marriage-age female population were single and that about 20% of Emirati men marry foreigners. There are fewer than 1 million Emi­rati citizens in a nation of 8 million people.

Said Al-Kitbi, a member of the UAE’s Federal National Council, said 175,000 Emirati women over 30 are unmarried. “This is very worrying,” he said.

The Saudi General Authority for Statistics indicated that women ac­count for 49.01% of the Saudi pop­ulation with the total percentage of unmarried females at 34.12%, including single women who are divorced or widowed. Once wom­en reach the age of 32 their chances of marriage greatly diminish, with only 2.8% getting married. About 10% of Saudi women aged 15 or over, have never been married.

The authority reported there were 336,780 divorced Saudis in the kingdom and 411,540 people are widowed.

The authority makes the distinc­tion between unmarried women and “spinsters” for statistical pur­poses. Unmarried women could be widowed or divorced, while spin­sters have never been married and are above the age of 32. The age a woman is considered a spinster dif­fers from one country to another. For example, at the end of 1999, the Saudi government recorded more than 1 million unmarried women over the age of 30, although those women could have been divorced or widowed and are not necessar­ily spinsters.

To encourage marriage the Saudi government implemented a pro­gramme to limit the amount of money a groom pays the bride’s family for a dowry. In 2015, a $13,300 limit was established for a “virgin bride” and $8,000 for a bride who had a previous mar­riage. Khalid al-Faisal, the emir of Mecca, sought assurances from local tribal leaders to agree to the new limits and document the dow­ries and have them ratified by the local courts.

Yet dowries and expensive wed­ding parties remain a sticking point between the younger generation of Saudis and the previous genera­tion.

“This is a social problem that leads to a breakdown in society,” said Murjan. “People don’t want to get married like their parents did. They can’t afford it and Saudi society is family-oriented and be­ing single is frowned upon. There is a lot of family pressure but the young people are resisting that pressure.”

Jeddah: Earlier this month, Qatar University administrators forced Dr Hatoon Al Fassi, a leading Saudi scholar instrumental in helping women gain the vote in Saudi Arabia, to postpone a Debate Club discussion on women in Islam at the university where she teaches.

University students launched an online petition demanding her sacking, alleging that her views on women’s rights in Islam are “contrary to the Qatari culture and values” and she sought to “spread poison in students’ brains.”

Twitter users created the hashtag #I’mWiththeExpulsionofHattonAl-Fassi in their efforts to oust the professor. Critics claimed her teachings were against “Islamic Sharia,” although they provided no evidence.

Such is the lot of an Arab women’s rights activist: condemnation, threats, intimidation. And there is perhaps a no more sensitive topic in the Gulf region, especially in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, than the discussion of exactly what rights are accorded women in Islam.

The Qatar incident appears to have boiled over following an article written by two of Al Fassi’s students.

“The problem was they wrote an article and argued there were some laws and gaps in women’s rights in Qatar,” Al Fassi told the Gulf News. “It was done professionally based on evidence. It’s common knowledge. I endorsed them and tweeted how proud I was of them. The girls were attacked and then I was attacked [on social media].”

The irony is that if Al Fassi’s lecture were to be held in Saudi Arabia, a considerably more conservative country than Qatar, it would be unlikely to have raised eyebrows given her reputation as a respected scholar and an activist who works with a soft touch to raise awareness on women’s issues.

Al Fassi doesn’t court controversy, but she is also no stranger to it and does not shy away from a good fight. It was Al Fassi and her legion of followers who worked virtually non-stop since 2005 to help win women’s right to vote in municipal elections.

The first elections were held in December 2015 and saw 20 women win council seats throughout the kingdom. Nearly 1,000 women had registered as candidates and an estimated 132,000 women cast ballots for the first time.

Al Fassi said she keeps in touch with some of the elected council members and their success has had varying results. “I don’t think we expected to change the norms or a lot in the community,” she said.

Women members are hampered by council rules and still must contend with gender segregation, which makes performing their duties difficult.

In Jeddah, Rasha Hefzi has faced marginalisation from her male colleagues, but has battled on.

“She doesn’t submit to that and has kept on working by going into areas trying to meet with the people,” Al Fassi said.

Al Fassi noted that the Saudi government can say it has accomplished its commitment to human rights groups, noting that Saudi Arabia can write in its annual report that women have participation and can stand for elections. The box can be checked there, but the work ahead is to ensure that female participation is not just cosmetic, but actual engagement, she said.

Born in 1964, Al Fassi is a member of the Sufi Al Fassi family of Makkah and is a descendant of Qutbul Ujood Hazrat Muhammad Al Fassi, the spiritual leader of the Fassiyah branch of the Shadhiliyya Sufis. When she retired as associate professor of women’s history at King Saud University in Riyadh with a full pension, she accepted a post as visiting professor at Qatar University. A mother of two children, her husband is Dr Abdul Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg, the assistant secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Among Saudis she is instantly recognised for her traditional Hijazi-style hijab that honours the history and traditions of the Hijazi tribe and inspired by an aunt. Her parents, she once told a reporter, infused her with “the spirit of Islam, about what is the essence of being a Muslim woman.”

Her pride in her history and Hijazi tradition is evident in how she wields her influence in women’s rights.

While younger and more militant Saudi women have emerged using blunt language to advocate for their peers, Al Fassi uses a less confrontational approach that has garnered important allies. Her rhetoric is minimal and she relies on fact-based research to argue her point. It makes her popular among the more traditional and conservative Saudi women who view with skepticism aggressive activists who are often perceived as posturing with their attention-getting language usually spoken by Western activists.

But even gaining acceptance among Saudi women to accomplish her goals is a challenge. A vast cross-section of Saudi women claim no interest in voting or running for elected office, mainly because they perceive the council as having no relevance in their lives and their voice would not be effective.

“I see no advantage to being a member of a council or asking them for anything,” said one female Saudi academic who holds a doctorate. “If they can build a park that is not a safety hazard, fine, but that is like asking for the world.”

Al Fassi said she understands their position. Even the 30 seats on the Shura Council granted to women in 2013 does not change perceptions among some women.

“It’s very hard to see the result and the impact of women on the Shura Council and you really have to follow closely to see what is going on to have a real grasp of what they are doing,” she said. “And they don’t relate easily to the issues of what the municipal councils do. Women feel their opinions don’t count and it’s a cultural problem.”

Al Fassi points to the councils for failing to be more transparent, but also the Saudi media. She credits Saudi newspapers for their growth and maturity in journalism over the last decade, but problems persist. Journalists generally don’t cover specific beats, leading to a lack of expertise.

Saudi journalists cover issues in which they lack understanding, she said.

“It depends on the journalist,” she said. “You have progressive newspapers and you have people who mix things up. Somebody does an interview on a hot topic and then it’s published after the interference of the editor-in-chief and you have a very provocative title of just the opposite of what you are saying.”

However, she said there are more female journalists than 10 years ago. “There are a lot of new voices and new journalists who are doing a very good job.”

Al Fassi is less active in the #IAmMyOwnGuardian campaign, which seeks to eliminate male guardianship rules that require women to obtain permission to receive an education, marry, seek medical treatment or leave the country.

Yet she is vocal about its control over women and supports the movement by keeping in touch with its organisers.

Aziza Al Yousuf, a leader of the campaign, argues that guardianship applies to issues of marriage in which the husband serves as the breadwinner and protects his wife and nothing more.

But in her 2007 book, ‘Women in Pre-Islamic Arabia,’ Al Fassi goes further. She contends that Arabian women in the pre-Islamic Nabataean period had immense rights. The concept of male guardianship is rooted in Greek and Roman law and is neither Islamic nor Arabian.

Simply, contemporary clerics have misinterpreted the origins of Islamic law, she said.

“I dispute that marriage is a part of guardianship,” Al Fassi said.

“It’s not compulsory and when talking about a divorced woman, there is definitely no need for a guardian. As for compulsory consent from a minor [guardian], I oppose it. If a woman needs a guardian for a marriage, it’s only for support, but it’s not up to him [the guardian] to decide who she must marry.”

At the moment, the Debate Club event is on hold as university administrators seek a more “comprehensive” view on women in Islam “that takes into consideration its religious, social and academic aspects.”

November 6, 2016

Jeddah – Saudi government employ­ees have received their first pay cheques since the an­nouncement that salaries would be slashed as part of a fiscal austerity programme.

The new salaries, deposited in bank accounts at the end of Octo­ber, provided Saudis — including all ministers and Shura Council mem­bers — with their first glimpse that belt-tightening was a stark, and per­haps permanent, reality.

“The economic programme will affect the lower- and middle-in­come people and won’t affect the wealthy,” said Assad Jawhar, an eco­nomics professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah.

The salary cuts are a bitter pill for many Saudis to swallow. Basic sala­ries are not particularly high in the government sector but allowances for housing, transportation, com­puter skills and other competencies vital to performing duties can add up to 40% to the total salary pack­age.

By eliminating allowances, some public workers saw their take-home pay reduced almost half. In some cases, Saudi workers had previ­ous deductions of up to one-third of their basic salary to repay gov­ernment overpayments. With the elimination of allowances and up to one-third in deductions from their basic pay, some employees saw their monthly income drop as much as 60%.

The Saudi middle class has been steadily shrinking and the cuts in wages among government workers will have a significant effect on the growth of middle-income bread­winners.

The salary cuts are just one av­enue Deputy Crown Prince Moham­med bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his advisers are pursuing to boost government coffers. It also raises the issue of whether austerity programmes work, especially when sacrifices from lower- and middle-income workers serve as the back­bone of the programme.

Economists caution that Saudi Arabia’s economic woes cannot be compared to those of the European Union or the severe austerity plan that caused considerable upset in Greece. Consumer confidence, high among the desirables to produce a robust economy, does not necessar­ily apply to Saudi Arabia.

Charles Schmitz, professor of ge­ography at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland, and a special­ist in Gulf economic policies, said Saudi Arabia’s austerity programme and salary cuts are painful but nec­essary.

“State employment in the king­dom is welfare,” he said. “The state’s bureaucracy is bloated as a means of passing the revenues from the state to society.

“The Saudis are used to a high standard of living that is based upon rents from oil, not labour produc­tivity. The prince’s programme is to help Saudis get used to the idea of tying their level of living to their productivity. It may be hard landing for a lot of Saudis but it is a neces­sary one.”

While salary cuts among minis­ters and the Shura Council and the recent sacking of Finance minister Ibrahim al-Assaf and replacing him with Mohammed al-Jadaan have garnered attention, most of the ministries have quietly reduced the number of expatriate workers, cur­tailed travel to seminars and confer­ences and discouraged extra train­ing at the employer’s expense.

In October, the Civil Service Min­istry’s Replacement Administration rejected 478 out of 516 contract re­newals for expatriate medical work­ers at King Saud University. The de­cision affects employees on the job for more than ten years and paves the way for the university to hire Saudis with postgraduate degrees.

Jawhar said the burden of the government’s programme is placed squarely on the average worker. He said spending is higher among the low- and middle-income Saudis in proportion to their monthly salaries compared to the buying habits of the wealthy.

He said a priority should be to eliminate corruption but also to ensure high-income earners con­tribute revenue to the government through taxation.

“They should go to the rich and target companies,” Jawhar said.

“The question is who is going to be affected negatively by the deci­sion? During the past ten years, the middle class has been shrinking. [The programme] will affect them.”

The Saudi government is deter­mined to eliminate entitlements to reduce the country’s $98 billion fis­cal budget deficit. The International Monterey Fund is optimistic that the government can cut the deficit to 13% of the gross domestic prod­uct in 2016 and to less than 10% in 2017.

To help accomplish this, Saudi consumers have been encouraged to curb recreational activities and spend less on luxury items and even curtail how much they spend at the market.

Schmitz said he is optimistic the strategy will be successful. “De­mand comes from two sources: Consumers and investors. The Sau­dis want to shift the demand from the consumer market to the private investment market so that there is more investment in the non-oil pri­vate sector. Investment can drive an economy just as much as consumer demand.”

Jeddah – When Aziza al-Yousef registered as a student at King Saud University in the Saudi capital Riyadh in the 1980s, she did not need her father’s permission. When her daughter enrolled in the same university in 2001, she was required to have her father’s signature on the permis­sion slip.

Yousef, 58, the mother of four sons and one daughter, has seen many changes in how Saudi women are treated in public and private institutions. She has witnessed a reduction of women’s rights in reaction to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran but has observed, in recent years, restrictions eased ever so slightly and slowly.

The retired professor — she taught computer science at King Saud University for 28 years — is leading a campaign to abolish male guardian regulations that require Saudi women to obtain permission from their father, brother, son or closest male relative to attend a university, travel or seek medical treatment.

“We are just asking to remove the government rule that affects our daily lives,” Yousef told The Arab Weekly.

Yousef recently attempted to deliver to the Royal Advisory Council a 14,700-signature petition seeking to abolish the guardianship regulations but she was rebuffed and told to mail it. She sent the document but has yet to hear back from the government. Whether the government is taking the petition seriously — it has ignored similar efforts — is unknown but a Twitter hashtag, #IAmMyOwnGuardian, has gone viral to help gain support for the cause.

Yousef said she is optimistic that changes can be made.

“We are used to 26 years of making demands,” Yousef said. “There is nothing we can do but to continue this thing. I hope the government treats this as an economic situation and we hope to get more allies. We have a young population with 50% under the age of 26. It’s time to listen.”

Saudi Arabia’s efforts to diversify its economy mean it must help female university graduates obtain employment in the private sector. They are an untapped resource that women’s rights organisers say can help turn around the kingdom’s sagging economy. The government hopes to increase women’s employment from 22% to 30% by 2030. Women have made progress in obtaining some rights, including appointments to the Shura Council and the right to vote and run for office in municipal elections.

However, the broader issue facing Saudis is not simply allowing women to travel without a man’s permission but how to interpret women’s rights in Islam. In a country where Saudis often ask foreigners to make the distinction between religion and culture, even Saudis can blur the lines. Throwing in government mandates affecting every female citizen only adds to the confusion. Where religious obligations end and culture and tradition, backed by government regulations, take over is often a mystery.

To Yousef and the signatories of the petition the difference in religious obligations and government mandates is stark.

“In Islam the man should be the breadwinner and the woman who gets pregnant and takes care of the household is not responsible for money,” Yousef said. “Islam does not say that women should not work or study but that she is responsible for her own actions and if she has a debt, she is responsible for that debt.”

Yet the very essence of guardianship in Saudi Arabia has morphed over more than three decades into one in which a man who earns the household income “must control the woman”, she said.

A woman under any interpretation of Islam is responsible for her own actions, Yousef noted. She added that if a woman “committed a robbery she doesn’t get half the punishment of a man” because she is female but “in the eyes of the government she is treated the same as a man”.

Conventional wisdom among Western observers is that educated Saudi women understand the difference between male guardianship as defined in Islam and arbitrary government regulations that limit women’s rights, but Yousef said supporters and opponents cannot be pigeonholed into one category.

“We have very educated women who are suffering because of the guardianship laws but we also have a lot of educated women who are firmly against eliminating guardianship,” Yousef said. “We have ladies who go abroad to study, get their PhD and then return and oppose what we are doing. There is no general rule of who is with who.”

She also noted that Saudis are pragmatic when it comes to opposing the petition’s goals: “People may understand the difference between rights for women in Islam and what the government is doing but they hold positions in government and they don’t want to risk their interests.”

Yousef grew up in a free environment in which her father was open-minded. She said she did not suffer the rigid patriarchal control that many of her peers experienced. “We were the lucky ones,” she said.

Yousef enrolled at King Saud University when she was a teenager. She dropped out after one semester to attend Virginia Commonwealth University in the United States, a 178-year-old institution known for its medical research. She was a wide-eyed, 19-year-old with limited English but became a fluent speaker possessing boundless self-confidence during her seven-year residence in the United States. She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and returned to King Saud to complete her master’s degree.

Yousef said the changes she has seen gave her hope for the future but some of the changes can be discouraging; a two-steps-forward-one-step-back process that can be both frustrating and exhilarating.

She said since the mid-1980s she has seen dormitory rules, which kept female students as virtual prisoners, relaxed. It is a small, but nonetheless important, change in campus life. She has also seen that women, who in the 1980s could arrive and leave campus any time during the day, face restrictions.

“Now the gates are closed, so if a student finishes a class at 9 in the morning, she must wait until the gates open at 12 noon to leave,” she said.

It is a system that treats women as children with maddening inconsistency but it has not always been that way.

In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia was a closed society with strict cultural boundaries and specific, yet unwritten, rules for the roles of men and women. However, women conducted their lives relatively freely only to see that freedom slowly ebb away.

Yousef points to the 1979 Islamic revolution and the Afghanistan war in the 1980s as turning points.

“We had people making statements to young men that they had to fight the Afghanistan war, which brainwashed a young generation. It wasn’t even our war,” she said. “After the war finished, everything became corrupted and now it is difficult to correct it.”

November 5, 2016

Jeddah: When Faisal Banjar founded Arabian Gulf Medical Tourism Agency he secured what he thought was an important contract with the 600-bed Dr Soliman Fakeeh Hospital to bring foreign patients for treatment and capitalise on the $40 billion-a-year (Dh147 billion) medical tourism industry.

Eighteen months later he is still waiting to bring his first client to the hospital. Instead, he is sending as many as 20 Saudis a month to foreign countries — mostly to Turkey and Germany — for medical treatment.

“Visas are hard to come by for people to visit Saudi Arabia for medical treatment,” Banjar told Gulf News.

Arabian Gulf Medical Tourism is one of a handful of Saudi businesses that offer domestic and international medical liaison services between Saudis and foreign patients and hospitals. But virtually all of their clients are Saudis leaving the Kingdom for medical treatment elsewhere. Few foreigners are coming into the country.

Saudi Arabia’s nearly $100 billion fiscal budget deficit and its depressed economy is forcing the government to implement a severe austerity programmeme and seek non-oil revenue. The health sector is part of that revenue plan and has been toying with the idea of developing a medical tourism programme.

Boost revenue

Medical tourism involves patients actively seeking low-cost medical care not available in their native country. It does not include accidents or illnesses that require medical treatment while abroad, but to travel to a foreign country to seek specific care.

To boost revenue and create a thriving tourism segment in the private sector the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage has endorsed a proposal that combines religious and medical tourism to attract the world’s 1.6 million Muslims who often seek spiritual solace during a health crisis.

Saudi Arabia has developed a five-year plan to encourage medical tourists to seek treatment in its government and private hospitals, but there has been little input from the private sector to engage in a public-private partnership.

According to the Medical Tourism Index (TMI) the Kingdom ranks 37th among the most desired countries to receive medical care. Canada ranks first in global ranking followed in order by the United Kingdom, Israel, Singapore and India.

Rankings also show that Saudi Arabia trails Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia, all of which have established specific medical specialities marketed to foreigners. The International Medical Travel Journal reports, for example, that Dubai projects that it will receive 500,000 medical tourists annually by 2020.

Although Saudi medical visas remain the primary obstacle to receiving a steady flow of foreign patients, services are available to any individual already in the country on a Haj, Umrah or work visa.

Competent treatment

Valorie Crooks, Canada Research Chair in Health Services Geographies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and scholar at the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, cautioned that patients should not be seduced by the perception that one country is more popular than another. Rankings do not necessarily reflect a country’s ability to provide competent treatment, and the reported number of patients visiting a country may be exaggerated, she said.

“I do think it’s important to question the numbers that are reported,” Crooks told Gulf News. “Is the UAE truly attracting medical tourists [such as] people who travel there for the expressed purpose of medical care, or are they including others in these numbers [like] ill and injured vacationers, expats living there who need care? Some clinics also report numbers of procedures rather than patients, and patients travelling from abroad may have multiple procedures and so can be double- triple- or even quadruple-counted.”

Crooks said she cannot speak specifically about Saudi Arabia, but she noted the kingdom is not “missing out” on large numbers of international patients travelling each year.

“In reality, the true numbers of people travelling abroad for medical are likely far less than what those in the industry report,” Crooks said. “Unfortunately this has resulted in many clinics finding difficulty in filling their international patient wards.

Once Saudi Arabia sorts its visa issues it is more than ready to accommodate international patients. The country has 95 hospitals — out of a total of 400 countrywide — and 74 medical programmes accredited by the Joint Commission International, which provides accreditation to medical facilities worldwide. The kingdom has also gained international recognition for its separation of conjoined twins. Since 1990, 34 sets of twins from 20 countries have been separated at the King Abdullah Specialist Children’s Hospital in Riyadh. Transplants

Perhaps more important is Saudi Arabia’s organ transplant programme. Dr Faisal Shaheen, director general of the Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation, said transplants jumped 40 per cent in 2015 over 2014. Saudi government hospitals, he said, conducted 1,031 heart, lung, liver and kidney transplants in 2015.

But Shaheen said it’s virtually impossible to bring foreigners into the kingdom for surgery because of the 6,000 Saudis and expats already on transplant waiting lists.

“Only about 5 per cent of the cases for transplants are non-citizens,” he said. “Patients here on a visitor’s visa are not accepted for transplants.”

Yet visitors who hold Haj, Umrah or business visas will discover that costs for other treatments such as paediatric, obesity and eye care, are relatively low in Saudi Arabia compared to its European or even Gulf competitors.

“I have seen that by and large cost is the predominant consideration for folks when travelling for medical treatment,” Laguduva said. “The second most important thing they look for is referrals or word of mouth. The latter plays a very important role.”

Crooks said that, “Costs are certainly a consideration, but patients are heavily concerned about their health as well as factors such as language, [having] medical documentation provided in the language they speak at home.”

November 4, 2016

Jeddah: When artist and calligrapher Nasser Al Salem decided that traditional Arabic calligraphy was too confining and sought break the bonds of the centuries-old art form, he was met with criticism and derision.

“I wanted to break out with a new art form,” the 32-year-old Makkah native told Gulf News. “Calligraphy needs to keep evolving to a different, unique style.”

The transition from traditional to contemporary calligraphy did not sit well with the old guard who view a modern take on what is considered a sacred expression of Arabic writing a violation of the standards of design. But Al Salem, who has been a calligrapher since he was 13 years old, is expressing a modern Saudi Arabia that is steeped in national, if not regional, pride.

Strict moral and cultural codes kept most art genres underground since 1979, a sharp reversal from the 1960s when the Saudi government encouraged art as a career by sending students abroad on scholarships to study and return home to teach.

But a majority of the next generation of Saudis eschewed the arts and humanities as frivolous and barriers to careers that generated a healthy income and prestige. Teaching and medicine reigned supreme while artistically-inclined children were discouraged to pursue their talent.

The culture changed dramatically for Saudis born after 1990 and who came of age in post-9/11 Saudi Arabia.

Satellite television and the internet exposed young people to Western and Asian media, particularly filmmaking, music and other forms of artistic expression.

The King Abdullah Scholarship Programme gave Saudi university students a full free ride to just about any accredited university in the world.

It allowed them to absorb and be comfortable with other cultures. No longer was a government job an answer to one’s future.

Many young Saudi artists today are self-taught while an increasing number are receiving formal training in foreign countries.

Maryam Bilal, who curates exhibits and serves as a liaison between the Athr Gallery of Jeddah and undiscovered artists, said the gallery looks for artists with a deep sense of regional identity.

“Their art has to be relative to what is happening today,” Bilal told Gulf News.

“Today we see displacement and home, and an identity to what is happening in the region. There is a longevity in their art.”

The government has brought 2.5 million displaced Syrians from their war-torn country into Saudi Arabia.

Their presence, influence and the tragedy of their experiences and losses are deeply felt among Saudi artists who express the emotional toll of war and its impact on the region less in political terms and more of its humanity.

Afia H. Bin Taleb, 26, who trained as an interior designer and is a project associate with Athr Gallery, said Zarah Al Ghamdi, who often creates site-specific installations, is one artist who depicts the human relationship to the environment in a visceral manner by using black paint to allude to the scorched, scarred and polluted earth, not unlike the destruction witnessed in the region.

“A lot of the art we see today is conceptual,” Bin Taleb said.

Such themes have attracted museums and galleries from the Smithsonian and the Armory Show in New York to Art Dubai to showcase Saudi artists.

International exhibits can be a heady experience for a young Saudi attempting to make a name in art circles.

Yet recognition, particularly in Saudi Arabia, remains elusive. The number of artists, whose work has matured, is increasing significantly, but the environment to support such artists has failed to mature with them.

Jeddah artist Fatima Baazeem said artists were “not highly appreciated” in the past.

While the arts community is blossoming, she said, recognition is difficult to come by, giving some artists the feeling they are being marginalized in the community where they work.

Baazeem noted that a group of artists recently staged a protest to draw attention to their art. Each artist cut up one of their works and donated it to create a collage as a single expressive theme. It was a collective statement that their work had value. “I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the final result, but it certainly sent a message.”

Al Salem agreed that artists struggle to be seen and heard.

“There is not enough exposure,” Al Salem said.

“There is not enough media. We can’t find good critiques. We can’t find serious art critics.”

Bilal said there is a lack of infrastructure to support local talent.

“There is not enough platforms for artists,” she said. “There are not enough museums and galleries. We don’t have a collecting culture here. I understand the frustration of artists. We are very slow in developing a collecting culture.”

The Saudi art scene appears to be in a state of limbo. Artists are eager to see whether Saudis with the financial means will evolve into art patrons and benefactors to help establish galleries and museums to bring art to the public. It hasn’t happened on a scale that will draw enough attention both domestically or internationally, but there is an expectation among artists that it’s only a matter of time.

There is also an anticipation of “what’s next” in Saudi society, Bilal said.

“I think the public is ready,” she said. “We see it in social media, photography, YouTube and other media outlets. They are ready for galleries, for museums and for cinemas.”

October 30, 2016

Jeddah – New visa fees intended to boost non-oil revenue and narrow Saudi Ara­bia’s near $100 billion budget deficit have gone into force and are likely to have a significant effect on pilgrims with the price of a haj visa rising five-fold.

An estimated 1.86 million pil­grims performed the 2016 haj, about 1.32 million of them foreigners, ac­cording to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Statistics. The United Nations’ World Tourism Organisa­tion said Saudi Arabia had 18 million international visitors in 2015.

Visitor numbers dropped by about 600,000 in 2015 from 2014 but did not have a significant effect on the nascent tourism industry centring on heritage sites in Mecca and Medi­na and tourist destinations such as Yanbu and Taif.

The price of a haj visa skyrocketed from $94 to $533. The hike sparked protests among South African Mus­lims. Moulana Ebrahim Bham, secretary-general of the Council of Muslim Theologians in South Africa, said a 10,000-signature petition was submitted to the Saudi Embassy and General Commission for Tourism and National Heritage seeking relief from the fees.

The price of a visa to perform um­rah, a pilgrimage that may be per­formed at any time of the year, also rose sharply. Ahmed Bilal, an expa­triate worker living in Taif, said the new fees will make it difficult to get his family to Saudi Arabia on umrah visas. “It makes it not easy to get the visa and it means I might have to take on some extra work,” he said, “but we will find a way.”

Short-term and transit visas is­sued by Saudi Arabia are close to what other countries charge. Short-term Saudi visa fees are slightly higher than Schengen visas issued by some EU countries. However, visitors incur greater expenses the longer they intend to stay in Saudi Arabia.

The visa fee hikes were imple­mented to boost income as Saudi Arabia struggles to wean itself from oil revenues and develop a sus­tainable economy. Measures taken include privatising 13 ministries, which will require public sector em­ployees to reapply for jobs once the ministry goes private; taxing vacant land to encourage construction; slashing government employee bo­nuses and allowances; and raising fuel prices.

“The measures are intended to help raise much-needed non-oil revenues. Businesses will have to pay an extra cost for travel as per global fee structures. The fee comes from a relatively low base and re­mains competitive,” John Sfakiana­kis, director of economic research at the Gulf Research Center, told Saudi Arabia’s Arab News.

A Saudi economist in Jeddah said the increased fees would have little effect on the number of internation­al visitors.

“Saudi Arabia is riding a big wave in interest from foreign Muslims who want to see the land of the two holy mosques,” he said. “Visa re­quirements are easier to meet and, although it may be more expensive now to get here, it’s every Muslim’s dream to come to Mecca and Medi­na.”

The new fees would have little effect on large companies doing business in Saudi Arabia, he said, adding: “Large corporations see this as the cost of doing business and can absorb the costs but small and medium-sized businesses that rely heavily on expat labour may pass those costs to the consumer or cli­ent.”

Jeddah – Saudi government employ­ees, long immune to get­ting fired even for poor job performance, are fac­ing work performance evaluations that include potential penalties. Yet the learning curve towards administering fair and objective assessments is expected to be daunting.

The Ministry of Civil Service announced a programme in April to have the ministries of Justice, Communications and Information Technology, Transport, Social Af­fairs, Foreign Affairs, Culture and Information, and Agricul­ture develop semi-annual job as­sessments for their employees. The programme was formally launched in October and affects 1.5 million Saudis working in the public sector. It is expected to ex­pand to other ministries.

Under the programme, govern­ment workers can be fired if they fail to improve their work perfor­mance after three years. They can lose bonuses after the first year of unsatisfactory employment, face disciplinary action after the second year and risk dismissal after the third year. Future pay increases may be denied to poorly performing workers.

“Three years is a bit long,” said Kamilia Karayyim, a human re­sources consultant who works in the private sector and academia in Saudi Arabia. “What the heck went on before that?”

Karayyim said there are “many good performance evaluation sys­tems” in place but the quality of work reviews vary. She also said Arab culture was not always the right environment to produce fair and objective work assessments.

“We are an amiable culture,” said Karayyim, noting that unfa­vourable reviews are rare in the workplace. “There is nepotism and favouritism in the system. It will be a challenge. In the private sector there is a little more push because there are profits to con­sider but if there is no clear di­rection, no mission and (employ­ers) are working to do something (develop a new programme) from scratch, it will be a challenge.”

The Civil Service Ministry’s plan calls for five categories in an evaluation: Excellent, very good, good, satisfactory and unsatis­factory. Premium bonuses range from 5-6% for an “excellent” rat­ing to 1-2% for “satisfactory” work.

One university professor, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the plan, said his university had a “quota” in which only a specific percentage of employees receive an equiva­lent to an “A” rating, another spe­cific percentage of workers receive a “B” evaluation, and so on.

“How is that fair and equitable?” he asked. “What if everyone in the department did an excellent job but some have to fail according to the quota system? Or if everyone was a poor performer but some employees must receive an ‘A’ rat­ing?”

He also noted that stated poli­cies, goals and missions in the public sector do not reflect the reality of the workplace in which supervisors may prevent an em­ployee from achieving a required goal or task because of time con­straints, expense or shortage of personnel. The supervisor then could give the employee a lower rating for failing to meet the stat­ed goal.

The professor also said the workplace environment under­mines the goal to administer ob­jective reports.

“Let’s face it, there is a political component in performance evalu­ations that is very problematic and difficult to control,” he said. “There are clashes in cultures, nationalities and tribes that mani­fest themselves in the perfor­mance evaluation.”

Naser Chowdhury, 33, a pub­lic sector worker originally from Mumbai, said homeland politics often spill over into the Saudi workplace.

“We have about 20 guys from dif­ferent regions and countries, all in South Asia, and four of them are supervisors,” Chowdhury said. “Things get very messy and con­fusing when one guy supervises another when their families at home are rivals.”

Karayyim said government workers would have difficulty with the new system following years of receiving positive work assessments.

“They won’t be able to handle it,” she said. “They will resign, take sick leave or get kicked out. For older employees, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Very few will shape up, especially the ones that have been there the longest.”

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Negative performance as­sessments allow government em­ployers to weed out poorly per­forming employees and replace them with highly motivated and productive workers with a work ethic. More efficient workers end up helping Saudi Arabia’s strug­gling economy. An objective work evaluation will become an impor­tant tool when some ministries become privatised and workers must reapply for their jobs.

Karayyim said 2017 would be a critical period for the transition. “I think 2018 should be better,” she said.

Chowdhury said there is a silver lining in the programme. “Even­tually, it will work itself out and, at long last, there will be account­ability for those workers who don’t do their job. I am optimis­tic,” he said.

October 21, 2016

Jeddah: When Bushra Al Andijani was a young girl she watched on television a pair of star-crossed lovers jump from the stern of a big boat into cinematic history.

“Jack”, the lead character, didn’t survive the icy Atlantic, but “Titanic” gave birth to Al Andijani’s lifelong dream to create something out of nothing.

“Since I was little and saw “Titanic” I was really moved that everything looked so real,” Al Andijani told Gulf News. “I want to create something realistic like in “Avatar” or “Lord of the Rings.”

Al Andijani will be among the Class of 2017 to graduate in the spring with a Bachelor’s degree in studies of visual and digital production from the Jeddah-based all-women’s Effat University in Saudi Arabia. She belongs to an exclusive membership: the first generation of Saudi university-trained female filmmakers.

It might be a shopworn expression to characterise Al Andijani and her classmates as trailblazing pioneers, but in a culture that generally remains committed to young women marrying first and consider a career second, Al Andijani represents a new breed of filmmaker competing against her male counterparts for coveted studio jobs. A profession once unattainable, Saudi women see producing feature-length movies within their grasp.

Less than a decade ago Saudis were resigned to shooting and screening their films outside the Kingdom. Most filmmakers were amateurs with no academic training, although many cut their teeth producing YouTube videos. Other aspiring directors and writers left the country to attend film school and even remained in Hollywood to pursue their artistic vision.

Saudis developing a reputation for mature themes in movies include Mohammad Al-Turki, who served as executive producer of the Richard Gere vehicle, “Arbitrage,” and “99 Homes” featuring Michael Shannon.

Jeddah native Mahmoud Sabbagh, whose romantic comedy film “Barakah Meets Barakah”, will represent Saudi Arabia in the Best Foreign-Language Film category at the 2017 Academy Awards. It also won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 66th Berlin Film Festival.

Al Andijani, who is studying CGI (computer-generated imagery) animation since starting the programme in 2014, has witnessed opportunities expand for young people with the skills and drive. She recently returned from Springfield, Missouri, where she spent a semester studying CGI at Missouri State University.

“When I was in high school I started looking at my options. I went to Effat to be an architect, but then I saw the animation program I definitely wanted to go there,” said the 20-year-old Al Andijani, who hopes to pursue a master’s degree and perhaps work for DreamWorks or Pixar. “I had to convince my parents; they were a little bit worried because three years ago there was no clear idea of whether there were jobs.”

If students’ interest in the curriculum at Effat is any indication, most filmmakers will make their way into film production. Dr Mohammad Ghazala, author of the book “Animation in the Arab World” and assistant professor and chair of Effat’s Visual and Digital Production Department, said 60 per cent of the students focus on live-action film production, 30 per cent on animation and about 10 per cent in screenwriting. Video game-making is another discipline that is emerging, he added.

Effat’s programme has four tracks: animation, film production, screenwriting and interactive media. It started with 16 students and has since mushroomed to 130.

But aspiring Saudi women filmmakers are an independent bunch.

While Ghazala estimates that about 30 per cent of his students will find employment in commercial studios, many will create their own jobs.

“They have their own stories outside the class and do their own projects,” he said. “The market in this country is hungry. Skilful professionals are expensive, but they are not all that skilful. But our students have the skills and the energy.”

The difficult path to obtaining experience to produce movies has much more to do with the practicalities and expense of filmmaking rather than government or cultural roadblocks. Effat students during the first year of the programme scrambled for whatever equipment was available, which was not much. Today, the department has 30 cameras and the necessary lighting and sound equipment to complete their work.

Ghazala said the Saudi government has paved the way for young filmmakers to establish themselves.

“There are a lot of opportunities for the new generation and they are giving a lot of support to filmmakers,” Ghazala said. “Before there was not much accreditation or support, but now we receive permission from authorities to shoot outside.”

Asem Al-Roumi, a Saudi filmmaker who owns Asem Films and is a graduate of the New York Film Academy, said government support, particularly with the collaboration between the Ministry of Culture and Information and the Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and the Arts, is critical to the success of local artists. The Saudi Film Festival held earlier this year in Dammam is a prime example.

“We got a [great] deal of govern­ment support,” Al-Roumi said. “The govern­ment support took shape by allow­ing us to go public.”

The extent of the Saudi government’s commitment to furthering the development of the country’s nascent film industry is evident in its recruitment of the New York Film Academy to conduct workshops at the King Saud University in Riyadh. Earlier this year NYFA instructors helped young Saudis make short films that offered intimate glimpses into Saudi culture.

“The New York Film Academy has been the academic institution of choice to numerous students from Saudi Arabia, many of whom have returned to their country and are deeply attached to the Kingdom’s blossoming creative community,” NYFA President Michael Young said in a statement.

Ghazala said young Saudis are eager to practice their craft in Saudi Arabia because they understand the mood of the country and respect its heritage and identity. He noted that Saudi Arabia possesses the necessary elements for good storytelling.

“When I was in Switzerland I asked someone why there was no filmmaking there and I was told, ‘we have an easy life and don’t have the drama,’ ” Ghazala said. “Countries must have some challenges (to produce good films) and I believe that Saudi Arabia will be the new hub for filmmaking.”

October 16, 2016

Jeddah – An effort to shorten even­ing prayer times in an­ticipation of a potential government regulation to close retail shops at 9pm is gaining traction among con­sumers who could gain an extra hour of shopping.

Officials with the Saudi minis­tries of Social Development, La­bour and Commerce and business leaders met recently to discuss the logistics and ramifications of clos­ing shops and some grocery stores at 9pm. Pharmacies and restau­rants would be exempt under the proposal.

Saudi Arabia is accustomed to the nightlife to avoid shopping during the day when temperatures can be extremely high. Businesses generally remain open until mid­night with restaurants open as late as 3am.

Special exemptions are be­ing considered for the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, which are all-night cities given the heavy around-the-clock influx of umrah and haj pilgrims and Muslim tour­ists. Shops generally would be ex­empted from closing early during Ramadan.

The recommendation, intro­duced in 2014, has been met with criticism from the business com­munity. Business leaders see a po­tential drop in sales, which comes at a time when the Saudi govern­ment is attempting to improve the economy by generating non-oil revenue and encouraging consum­er confidence.

While business owners warily look at the early closure proposal, shoppers appear to welcome the change in how long shops close for prayer.

Abeer, a 31-year-old mother of two boys and who asked that her family name not be published, said her shopping excursions generally begin immediately after Asr — the afternoon prayer — which gives her about a three-hour window to conduct family business without interruption. Every business in Saudi Arabia closes its doors dur­ing prayer times during the day and early evening, generally for about 30 minutes.

Sitting at a coffee stand across from a closed oud shop at the Al- Salaam Mall during Maghrib — the prayer just after sunset — Abeer said Saudis and expatriate workers schedule their lives around prayer times, adapting easily to waiting for business to resume.

“It’s no bother,” she said. “I pray at the women’s mosque here in the mall, have my coffee and wait. It’s time to relax.”

She noted, however, that her two preschool-age boys make it a challenge to arrive at the mall early enough to do shopping. It is always a rush to get shopping completed before the final prayer of the day. “I see nothing wrong with shortened prayer times. It gives me an extra hour to get things done,” Abeer said.

A shop manager in charge of a men’s clothing store at Al-Salaam, who asked not to be identified, said the store could use the extra time to boost sales. “To be honest, most of us don’t need the 25 minutes to go and pray,” he said.

The manager also noted that his two non-Muslim employees are idle for a total of about one-and-a-half hours from Asr, which starts around 3.40pm this time of the year, through Isha, which begins around 7.35pm.

Although consumers may wel­come shorter evening prayer time closures, they are less than enthu­siastic about closing shops at 9pm. The goals of early closing times are two-fold: To boost Saudisation that puts more Saudis in the workplace by making working hours more attractive and to help employees with daytime jobs to get to work on time. The proposal, in effect, would dramatically reorganise the life of workers and shoppers.

“It’s not practical for people to go shopping in the middle of the af­ternoon when it’s the hottest part of the day,” said Irfan Mohammed, 44, an expat worker. “Besides, my colleagues and I get off at 5 o’clock. Even with shorter times for Salat, there would not be enough time to take care of my chores before busi­nesses close at 9.”

Some restaurant owners fear the early closing times will have a rip­ple effect on their businesses be­cause there will be less customer traffic in and around their location once retail shops close. “People naturally go to dinner after they shop,” said one manager of a Chi­nese restaurant just a block off Tahlia Street, Jeddah’s most lively retail centre. “Our dinner rush hour at 11 would disappear.”

One Saudi businessman said stores closing at 9 is no big deal. “Change is hard for people but they will get over,” he said. “We always adapt.”

Rob L. Wagner is an independent journalist and author covering Saudi Arabia for print and digital media. He currently writes for the London-based The Arab Weekly, which provides news analysis of the MENA region, and covers Islamic tourism for Thomson Reuters. His work has appeared in numerous English-language daily newspapers in the Gulf region, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Wagner was previously the managing editor for the Jeddah-based Arab News and Saudi Gazette daily newspapers. This website is an archive of his published articles and photos.